Opinion Brief: Wednesday, October 5, 2016

Tonight’s Opinion Brief is brought to you by Cannabis Canada Association, the voice of Canada’s Licensed Producers. Learn more about us and Canada’s world-leading system that has been delivering safe, consistent and high quality cannabis into the right hands for years.
_______________

Good evening, subscribers. Everyone knew the federal government’s first major foray into federal-provincial negotiations in almost a decade was going to be a rocky ride — such negotiations always are. No one was counting on an act of self-sabotage by the prime minister right out of the gate.

Brent Rathgeber says Prime Minister Trudeau’s announcement of a carbon pricing plan as provincial environment ministers were negotiating in Montreal was — while probably well-intentioned — a stunning political error that’s squandered whatever political capital he held in any provincial legislature other than Queen’s Park. “It’s generally not a great thing for federalism to adopt a sledgehammer approach — having three provincial ministers storm out of a meeting to discuss next steps on climate change might amount to the official end of ‘sunny ways’.”

Jonathan Manthorpe looks at the stunning rejection by Colombian voters of a deal to end that country’s 52-year civil war and draws from it a lesson for elected leaders everywhere: A referendum tends to be the last resort of the gutless. “The result is yet another stark reminder that in democracies, elected governments should make decisions — however tough — and make themselves accountable at regular elections instead of trying dilute their responsibility through referenda.”

And The Tyee‘s Bill Tieleman tears a strip off the federal Liberals for their prolonged flirtation with the brutal regime running China. “Really? Canada’s prime minister isn’t even willing to acknowledge the huge problems every major human rights group has documented for decades?”